Passed... but for how long?

The House passed an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA for you acronym-lovers out there) by a vote of 213-197... essentially along party lines.

The amended legislation “does not provide retroactive immunity" for telecom companies but does allow courts to determine whether a lawsuit should or should not proceed.

Naturally, "President" Bush, being the kind of person he is, has threatened a veto.

(So let me get something straight... he's going to veto the bill because the only thing he doesn't like is the portion about telecom immunity... but then he'll immediately start blaming Democrats for putting the US at risk of a terrorist attack...

Now... correct me if I’m wrong, but if he were so sure that its passage would ensure America’s safety, shouldn’t he be less worried about the telecoms and allow the bill to become law??? Or am I using too much common sense?)

The Veto crayon strikes again...

Once again the Veto crayon was removed from its box and used to dash the hopes of millions of kids as “President” Bush vetoed the SCHIP bill… and unlike his last veto of stem-cell research (which also had wide-ranging support), he did it without a plethora of children behind him… and with good reason.

On September 27th – 30th, a Washington Post/ABC News Poll asked this question; “There's a proposal to increase federal spending on children's health insurance by 35 billion dollars over the next five years. It would be funded by an increase in cigarette taxes. Supporters say this would provide insurance for millions of low-income children who are currently uninsured. Opponents say this goes too far in covering children in families that can afford health insurance on their own. Do you support or oppose this increased funding for this program?”

Support? 72%

Oppose? 25%

Unsure? 3%

Sooooooo… a large majorty of respondents said that they DID approve of the plan…

But once again, Bush wielded his crayon and vetoed the plan…

Reaction has been swift from both sides.

rEPUBLICAN Sen. Orrin Hatch (r-UT); “Unfortunately, I believe that some have given the president bad advice on this matter, because I believe that supporting this bipartisan compromise to provide health coverage to low-income children is the morally right thing to do. I hope that we can muster enough votes to overturn this veto.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); “It's very sad that the president has chosen to veto a bill that would provide health care for 10 million American children for the next five years. ... I don't think the president wants to say to the American people that he as the decider, the self-proclaimed decider, wants to decide what children get health care and which children do not.”

rEPUBLICAN Sen. Gordon Smith (r-OR); “I believe this is an irresponsible use of the veto pen. I hope the House can garner enough votes to override the President.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV); “Never has it been clearer how detached President Bush is from the priorities of the American people. By vetoing a bipartisan bill to renew the successful Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), President Bush is denying health care to millions of low-income kids in America.”

rEPUBLICAN Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (r-LA); This is an important program with bipartisan support, and I'm committed to a responsible extension. ... Any long-term extension must include an effective plan focused on enrolling children who currently qualify but who for whatever reason are not signed-up, anything less is irresponsible.”

Even rEPUBLICAN Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who very well could be a witch that eats children; said; “I believe there are valid concerns about expanding SCHIP, but the president should sit down with Congress so we can continue the SCHIP program within the scope of its original mission, which is to insure as many children as possible who are too poor to afford private insurance but do not qualify for Medicaid.”

And reaction from non-politicians?

American Academy of Pediatrics president Jay Berkelhamer; “Today's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) will have a serious negative impact on low-income children and their families across this nation.”

Chair of the AMA’s board of trustees Edward Langston; “The number of uninsured kids has increased by nearly 1 million over the past year, and action must be taken to reverse this trend. The AMA strongly urges members of Congress from both political parties to stand on the side of America's parents and children by voting to override the veto.”

What does the president not get regarding the program??

As I’ve said many, many, many times before; January 20, 2009 CANNOT COME SOON ENOUGH…

A sad and pathetic threat by Bush

As I mentioned briefly in this morning’s “’BushWhack’ing”, there is a bi-partisan effort underway in the Senate to renew a program that provides health insurance to poor children, and they’ve reached a compromise that would expand the program by $35 billion over five years, an increase agreed to by both Democrats and republicans.

The program currently insures 6.6 million low income children from families that do not qualify for Medicaid, but are still too poor to afford private insurance coverage, and under the Senate’s expansion plan, an additional 3.3 million children would be covered under the program that was developed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and republican Sens. Charles Grassley (r-IA) and Orrin Hatch (r-UT), among others…. and they plan to pay for this with a scant $0.61 increase on the federal excise tax on cigarettes.

“President” Bush opposes both.

Now I could give a rats-ass as to the cigarette tax… but the one that really frosts my preserves is his opposition to insuring more children whose only strike against them is being born into a poor family.

This isn’t a partisan issue, as republicans have tried pleading with Bush to compromise with Democrats on the legislation and he’s ignored them (and he wonders why no one likes him and why no gop candidates want their picture with him… it’s because he’s a train wreck that’s turning into a disaster who only cares about his beliefs and no one else’s, but I’m getting off-topic)

And no, he doesn’t have a better solution in mind; he wants to kill the expansion because… well, let’s let him speak for himself;

“My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government.”

You read that right… he’s essentially saying that he cares more about private insurance companies than he does about children's health, (which seems, to me, to exemplify how he and other republicans don't care about children once they are outside the womb or outside the Petri dish)

Bush went on and said that he objects to the proposal based on “philosophical grounds”…

‘Philosophical grounds????’ Whose philosophical grounds; insurance and healthcare companies?? Or more specifically, insurance and healthcare company’s political gop contributions???

And what’s more, his comments seem to imply that he wants private insurance only… now I could get into the whole socialized medicine universal health care spiel, but after reading this, I’m just too frustrated to do it.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the House Democratic Caucus chairman, said that he’s “bewildered” that Bush would be fighting an expansion in funding for a program that is not only supported by Democrats, but republicans as well. Said Mr. Emanuel;

“This is the chance for him to finally be a uniter and not a divider. You have consensus across party and ideology, and a unity on the most important domestic issue, health care -- except for one person.”

Bush’s ignorance here is unnerving… this isn’t a program to increase handing out condoms in schools or to teach evolution, two things that cause conservative’s skin to crawl… it’s ensuring that children who can not fend for themselves and have been born into situations that they are not able to control or change have health coverage…

I mean… shouldn’t it be a necessity to ensure that children (who are, as trite as it may sound, our future) are healthy?

Billions and billions of dollars for Iraq… but let’s screw poor kids.

The man is a tool… and I hope Bush can explain to the sick and dying kids what his "philosophical" reasons are for letting them suffer… and I won’t even bring-up his pre-presidential pledge to be a “compassionate conservative” because he obviously only understands the definition of one of those words.

Your guess as to which one I’m inferring to…

The galloping vetoer strikes again

“President” Bush got out his veto crayon again and, once again, decided to ignore the will of the American people as he brushed back legislation that would have “eased restraints” on federally-funded embryonic stem cell research.

Bush tried to smooth things over with an executive order that intends to “encourage scientific advances in regenerative medicine.” The prolem with that, as the New York Times writes, is the effort is “largely symbolic” as there is “no money attached — and some scientists were instantly skeptical” of the order.

And with good cause…

White House spokesperson Tony “Job” Snow tried to placate the masses by stating;

“This is, certainly not an attempt to muzzle science. It is an attempt, I think, to respect people's conscience on such an issue.”

Not really there Skippy… 70% of the American people want this bill, but you seem to be more worried about… what exactly? The unborn? Sorry Georige, this bill had absolutely nothing to do with protecting the unborn because the embryos covered in this legislation were embryoes that were already scheduled to be destroyed… so this veto does absolutely nothing to prevent that so it seems that the veto is more about Bush guaranting that private industry will get the right to charge everyone an arm and a leg for the cures that they come up with through private funding of stem cell research…

Of course that’s just my opinion…

The House & Senate actually did something

A little bit of sanity has been returned to the country as the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill this morning that will restore habeas corpus, the sacrosanct Constitutional right to challenge government detention in court.

There was no debate… there were no amendments attached… it was a straight vote of eleven to eight, with Arlen Specter (R-PA) the ONLY republican to support the bill.

Scary isn’t it that 88.9% of republicans on the committee believe that following the Constitution is optional

The bill should reach the full Senate later this month where a major challenge still exists in getting the bill passed there… and another challenge by the House… and by “President” Bush.

And while the Senate Judiciary was passing this bill, the House, ignoring Bush’s constant threats of a veto, voted to expand stem cell research… thus defying “President” Bush’s wishes, which is always good to see. The unfortunate part of that is that the House and Senate do not have the two-thirds majority needed to override Bush’s crayon veto.

But for now, revel in the fact that a little bit of common sense has returned to this country… albeit for a short time.